The Sweetest Thing (10 page)

It’s weird how she keeps saying that, especially when there’s nothing natural about any of this. A fifteen-year-old with a missing mother and a fame-obsessed father, forced 96

into a phony Sweet Sixteen party—could this be any more
un
natural?

Dylan hoists the camera onto his shoulder and I finish up the basil. I try to go into cake mode. When I’m working on a cake, I can totally block out the rest of the world; focus entirely on the process and how good it feels to create something beautiful. Of course, I know the destiny of every cake I make: total destruction, digestion, excretion.

Doesn’t bother me, though. Cakes make me happy; they make people happy. And that makes me feel good. I’m just like Mom in that way.

I move from station to station. Whenever I hear “Sheridan!” I scurry over to the person in need and finish whatever he or she was doing. Stirring creamy, melting chocolate over a double boiler; separating dozens of eggs; peeling carrots, cucumbers, and potatoes; slicing paper-thin lemons for the restaurant’s signature lemonade-and-champagne mimosas.

My mother invented this drink, one of the few things that Dad didn’t get rid of that was hers. He couldn’t; people loved it too much. With each slice, I feel her standing next to me. I daydream about us slicing lemons together, or making the cake for my party; maybe even sailing again. Maybe soon.

I glance at the clock. It’s seven thirty, and you wouldn’t think it possible, but the energy in the kitchen is increasing.

The first seating isn’t until ten, and everyone around me is in total panic mode. But I love this.

97

As I chop the leaves off a celery stalk, my mind wanders to Sault Sainte Marie. I’ve never been there, but I can imagine the bakery where my mother is probably greeting customers right now. This makes me smile. I wonder if her Sweetie’s has lemon yellow vinyl tablecloths, too. And pink polka-dotted aprons.

And just the fact that she named it Sweetie’s—it’s like she wanted me to find her.

Standing here dicing celery, I make plans to call her again. If I can’t get in touch with her, Jack can drive me up there. If my father finds out about any of this, he will blow his top. But I don’t care. I just need to get her here.

I wake up from this daydream and notice cameraman Dylan looking totally bored. Amazon is gone, but she’ll probably eat him alive if he doesn’t get some good film. Feeling plucky, I pick up a slice of lemon and suck on it, making a sourpuss face at the camera. He laughs.

“Man, this stuff is going to be really exciting,” I say.

He rolls his eyes and smiles. “Just do what the lady says and act normal.”

I pick up my arms and do a funky-monkey walk around my station, then stop and laugh until I hear a woman shout from the dining room. “Sheridan!” I hurry out of the kitchen to see what’s up and I am instantly dazzled. The stage has been set: the restaurant has been transformed into a spring-time dream. Floor-to-ceiling vases stand in every corner, ex-ploding with brightly colored flowers and each round table 98

is covered with a crisp white cloth and a short, fat glass vase packed with tulips, daffodils, and greenery.

Three long carved wooden tables, also covered with flowers and smooth green tablecloths, stand at angles along the back of the dining room. Rows of shining silver chaf-ing dishes lay at the ready, tiny blue Sterno flames glowing beneath them.

And this is only the main room. There are private rooms upstairs that are probably even more spectacular.

“Sheridan! Help!” Dominique, Dad’s pastry chef, is hunched over something, with her back to me. I slide up next to her and see the black lamb cake—decapitated!

Dominique’s eyes are desperate. “First seating in less than an hour, and I don’t have time to fix it!”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back in two minutes.” Cake Girl is on the job. I run through the kitchen, dodging busboys, avoiding pots of boiling water, and steering clear of chefs who wield knives bigger than my head. Just as I reach the back door, I hear him.

“Sheridan Wells, where the hell do you think you are going?”

It’s my father. I snap around, fed up with his temper, with everything about him. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” The words erupt, loud and sharp. “I am going to save your stupid lamb cake—

if that’s okay
with the star
!” I fan my fingers out around my face and make my eyes real big. I must sound and look like a complete psycho. Even I am surprised by my anger.

99

Everybody in the kitchen has stopped what they’re doing and are looking from Dad to me and back again. No one talks to Donovan Wells like that. But that’s okay; since these days I am no one to him, only a character in his TV show.

He’s frozen in shock, and I don’t stick around for a response. I run out the door and into the cold, then sprint through the parking lot, across the alley, and into the back of the bakery. I am desperately trying to hold on to my good mood from this morning. It’s a losing battle.

Sweetie’s is flooded with customers. Nanny and Roz are out front with Mrs. Bartley and Ms. Pringle, residents of Lake Bluff Retirement Home who come to help out in a pinch.

I poke my head in and see Nanny, who’s all smiles as she helps her customers.

“Hey, Nan . . . black sheep lost its head!” I say, friendly, even though I’m stil irritated by her behavior this morning.

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, take what you need, darlin’. We’re busier than a moth in a mitten in here!”

I survey the kitchen, deciding what supplies I’ll need. A bamboo skewer. A sleeve of black buttercream. The tub of stainless-steel tips. I’ll do better than bandage that lamb; I’ll make it look better than it did before.

Shoving everything into a pink box, I think of ribbons.

I’ll need some, in case I can’t disguise the wound. I push 100

my way into Nanny’s messy office and stretch for the ribbon dispenser on the credenza behind her desk. I can’t quite reach it, so I squeeze between the chair and desk, grabbing a length of pastel plaid wired ribbon. Totally Eastery.

I paw around for the scissors, but there are so many papers that I can’t find them. This desk is a catastrophe. I push back the chair and sit, picking through the piles, opening the top drawer.

Hello? Scissors?

As I hunt, my hand nudges the computer mouse. The screen saver flicks off, and there on the monitor is a Google search results screen.

I keep feeling for the scissors, but out of the corner of my eye, I notice the words that are highlighted on the Web page. Not just words. A name.
Margaret Taylor Kirby
.

There are ninety-nine thousand results. I can hear Nanny’s booming voice up front, so I click the back arrow to see what else she’s been searching for.
Margaret Taylor Wel s.

Margaret Taylor Canada
.

So, Nanny’s been hunting, too.

I gather my supplies and take the whole spool of ribbon.

I can’t think about this now; I’ve got a lamb to save. I put my hand on the mouse and hit the back arrow one more time.

Margaret Taylor Sault Sainte Marie
.

The back of my throat closes, and there’s an acidic taste in my mouth. I scroll down the results, a layer of fog in my eyes. How did she know?

101

Save the lamb, Sheridan. So what if your grandmother has
been keeping secrets from you. Do your job
.

I slip out the back door, run over to the restaurant, and force myself to calm down. When I enter the kitchen, Dylan, who has been waiting for me, smiles.

“Thought I lost you,” he says.

I try to shake off this horrible feeling. Nanny knows I want to find Mom. But did she know all along that Mom was in Sault Sainte Marie? I am so calling that bakery as soon as humanly possible.

Back at the restaurant, I go to work on the lamb. I force my mouth into a slight arc for the camera, but it’s hardly sincere. Ignoring Dylan as he hovers over me, like a bee above a flower, I fix the stupid cake.

At 9:45, Dad does a final inspection of the dining room.

There are hungry customers waiting outside in a heated reception tent, sipping Mom’s lemonade mimosas.

My father scans the room like a ship’s captain. I stand near the door to the kitchen, pull off my hairnet, and watch him. This is a tradition, this final inspection and I’ve been a part of it since I was a kid. He motions for one of the wait-ers to straighten his tie, for a waitress to smooth her apron.

And then his eyes land on me. Dad looks me up and down.

My once-white apron is now smeared with all the colors of the gastronomic rainbow. He clears his throat, surveys my worn-out running shoes and my hair—which is probably sticking out in every direction—and raises his eyebrows. I 102

turn around and leave.

Although I’m stuck in the kitchen for the rest of the day, I’m sure every guest leaves fat and happy, full of incredible food made by the man who put St. Mary on the map. The famous Donovan Wells.

As I work, a new worry weighs me down. Nanny knows Mom is in Sault Sainte Marie. Is my own grandmother really a traitor?

I try to concentrate on my plan instead: bringing Mom home and convincing Dad to stay put. It’s a simple plan, really. But as I dice onions for the frittata station, I obsess about what else Nanny knows, and what I don’t. It’s all sort of overwhelming. I stop what I’m doing and take a deep breath.

Dylan is keeping busy in the kitchen with his camera, but he doesn’t film me anymore. Maybe he’s had enough of me for the day, or maybe he can tell that the tears in my eyes aren’t just from the onions.

103

since sliced bread

I finally slump into the house, totally beat, at nine thirty.

Brunch was served until four, but then there was a cocktail party for VIP customers, including the Suits. It’s still going on, but they don’t need me anymore.

I stumble up the stairs, take a long shower, throw on my comfy sweats, and flip open my laptop. I go to the Sweetie’s listing and stare at the phone number. It’s ten o’clock now, so they’re closed. But I dial again anyway, listen to the greeting.

I know I have to figure out what I’m going to say to her, but right now I’m so tired my brain hurts.

My eyes are drooping and I’m almost asleep when Jack’s ringtone blares across the room.

“Hey?” I answer.

“Hey. You home?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Tired?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do the chem lab?”

“Oh. Crap,” I mutter as my head drops to my chest.

“Forget it. I’ll just take the zero.”

“No, you won’t. I’ll be over in twenty.”

Before I can protest, he hangs up. When the doorbell rings in exactly twenty minutes, I am yanked out of a deep sleep in which I am making six-foot-tall gum paste lilac blossoms, dicing onions, and poring over endless pages of Internet search results—miraculously all at the same time. Weird.

The doorbell rings again.

I trudge downstairs, open the door just a crack. “Is that what I think it is?” I point to the steaming travel mug in Jack’s left hand. He raises his eyebrows.

“Thought you might need some.”

I fling open the door and throw my arms around him.

“I love you!”

He stumbles backward a little. “Here, just take it. No need for public displays of affection.”

I take the warm cup of coffee into my eager hands. We walk to the kitchen and sit as I take a sip.

“Mmm . . . you make this?”

He nods, picks up his backpack, and pulls out his chem book.

105

“Ick. Do we hafta?” I’m just miserable at this stuff, al-though Jack tells me I use chemistry every time I mix icing colors. I don’t even argue back that that is so not the same thing.

“Yes, we hafta.” He opens the book and flips back and forth, looking for the right page. “So . . .” His eyes peer up at me suspiciously. “How long did you wait to call the number?”

I sit up a little. I can’t lie to Jack, but this is going to piss him off.

“Jack. It’s a bakery. Not like a private residence or anything.”

He smacks his forehead with his palm. “Why can’t you just be patient?”

“I don’t have to be patient; I know it’s her.” I take another long sip of coffee. “I was in Nanny’s office, and I saw on her computer that she’d been searching for Mom in Sault Sainte Marie. And I hadn’t even told her.”

Jack sighs. “Then why don’t you ask Nanny first, before you make a fool out of yourself with some complete stranger?”

“Because . . .” I put the mug down on the table. “She’ll try to talk me out of it. And I don’t have time. I need to get her back here fast.”

He stares at me suspiciously. “Wait. I thought you just wanted to contact her. Why do you need her here fast?”

Something about Jack makes me blurt things out to him that I should just keep to myself.

106

“Nothing. Never mind. I just want to find her, okay?

Before my dad tries to drag me to some foreign country.”

“Sheridan. New York City is not a foreign country.”

“Might as well be.” I stare at my coffee, pick it up, take a long swallow.

“No.” Jack opens his notebook and clicks his pen. “It’s 779.58 miles away. Twelve hours and forty-five minutes by car. I Mapquested it.”

I smile up at him. “You honestly think the Beast could make it that far?” I’m speaking of his ancient Corolla.

“That car does whatever I tell it to do.”

“Well, that’s debatable. But I am still not going.”

“No, no, of course not. Why would you want to go live in the most incredible city in the world?”

I sit back. “Okay. Can we just not talk about this right now?”

“Fine.”

“And you’ll still help me with Mom?”

He nods. “Just promise me we’ve seen the last of the restraining orders?”

“Ha, ha,” I say sarcastically, noticing his face. All his zits are gone, thanks to Dr. Holliday, the magical dermatologist.